Despite what many people believe, we can’t shift all the blame on parents.

Some babies are more difficult than others. They are prone to bad moods. They have more trouble adjusting to new things, more trouble making transitions from one activity to the next. They may be irritable, easily stressed out, and have special difficulty recovering from negative emotions.

What happens if you have a baby like that?

It’s trying, frustrating, and exhausting. It may be very difficult to cuddle and coo when your baby seems perpetually difficult. You might lose patience or become depressed. And we might see a vicious circle develop. Difficult baby. Angry, frustrated, or disgusted parent. Even more difficult baby.

So Michael Lorber and Byron Egeland of the University of Minnesota examined old data on a group of 267 mother-infant pairs who used a public health clinic in the 1970s. The families were enrolled in a 30-year longitudinal study. There is data on the development of these children across many years.

What especially interested Lorber and Egeland were the data collected on the babies’ temperament, the mothers’ behavior, interactions between parents and children, and the emergence of conduct problems among children by the time they reached school age.

Well, there was evidence that mothers and children influence each other. But — surprisingly, for the researchers — there was also a pretty evident asymmetry.

Negative parenting in infancy, as measured by observers who watched mothers feeding their children at 3 and 6 months, was uniquely predictive of school-age conduct problems: Mothers who had displayed more anger, frustration, or disgust toward their infants were more likely to end up with difficult 5- and 6-year-olds.

It wasn’t just that these kids were more difficult at home. Their teachers judged them to be more aggressive, distracted, or likely to get into trouble at school.

And the key point is this: Difficult infant behavior in the first 6 months was not a consistent predictor of later conduct problems. Some babies were more difficult than others. And they surely put a strain on their parents. But being a difficult baby was not a one-way ticket to developing behavior problems later in life.

So in this study, we can probably say that negative parenting comes first. And the researchers saw a pattern over time. Mothers who showed more negative reactions to their infants were more likely to get embroiled in mutually negative interactions with their children as they got older.

In fact, that was the stepping stone between negative parenting in infancy and conduction problems in school. Twice, at 24 months and 42 months, children were brought into the lab to work on some problem-solving tasks with their mothers. Kids who’d experienced negative parenting in infancy had more trouble: They showed more anger and forceful rejection of their mothers’ ideas. And they received more anger and rejection from their mothers.

Overall, this pathway (from early negative parenting, to negative mother-toddler interactions, to conduct problems at ages 5 and 6) accounted for a sizable chunk of school-age behavior problems. When researchers looked at differences between school kids, about 24-35% of the variance could be chalked up to this pathway.

Keep in mind. This study doesn’t tell us that kindergarteners with conduct problems have parents who treated them negatively in infancy. Some parents treated their babies with affection and patience and still ended up with defiant kids.

And another thing: This study didn’t control for any psychological characteristics that kids might have inherited from their parents. Mothers and children might share genes that put them at greater risk for behaving negatively.

But we are left with a very interesting result. Difficult infant behavior in the first 6 months of life was not consistently linked with conduct problems. Negative parenting behavior was.

And we have to remember something else, too. Difficult babies often become very successful children if they receive warm, sensitive, responsive parenting. So parents of difficult babies need to know. Your efforts do matter. Chances are, you can have a very important influence. For more information, see my post “Difficult babies can turn into super kids.”

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9 Responses to Negative parenting makes kids aggressive?

Laurasays:

October 31, 2011 at 10:27 am

This is really interesting, Gwen. To me this suggests that mothers need lots of support — especially from their babies’ fathers. A lot of people would interpret this as “bad mothering” but I think people rarely talk about the role of fathers and other caregivers in parenting.

My son is pretty easy and my husband is a great partner in parenting — and it is still challenging. I cannot imagine doing it on my own.

I’m glad you mention that, Laura, because that’s the primary goal of this sort of research–figuring out what we can try to change. As the authors of this study note, this research suggests we might reduce childhood behavior problems by helping parents cope with their difficult babies.

Renesays:

October 31, 2011 at 11:18 am

2 things:
First – nagative parenting is th eroot of my defiance problems in school. I did receive a very loving step-mother in my teen years which helped tremendously is undoing earlier trauma.
Second – the 24 month milestone: I was unable to properly care for my son between 20 and 25 months due to complications in my second pregnancy. Now at age 4, I am experiencing difficulty with him and it’s hard for me. This article helps me have faith. Thank you.

Angelasays:

October 31, 2011 at 12:24 pm

The study didn’t take factors like ADHD into account, though? That is a terrible strain on a parent – and of course a child!! And as positive a parent as you might be, you can’t take it away. Plus it takes years to understand what is going on and learn how to deal with your child in a positive way. You’d have to subtract these kids from the study or you would skew the results to meaningless.

@ Angela: To clarify, the researchers didn’t measure ADHD as a baseline condition. They couldn’t, because it isn’t considered diagnosable until the child is older. But attention problems were some of the outcomes that they were interested in.

Again, these results don’t tell us that kids with problems experienced negative parenting. Just that negative parenting during infancy is a predictor of problems later in life.

Mariasinglemomsays:

October 31, 2011 at 12:58 pm

I find this discussion very interesting. I am a single mom to a 2yo daughter. She shows more temperament at this age and still continually cries and screams for anything to get my attention although I always give her my love and affection when I pay her attention. Only problem is that being a 40 year old single working mom with a very limited support system puts a lot of pressure on my time… what with working, shopping, cooking cleaning and looking after my daughter how do you remain the positive attentive parent while balancing the pressures of single parenthood. I dont want my daughter to hate me and how can I get the balance right at this age. She is a “good” child at play school but very clingy at home. When i explain that I have to let her go, she cries insescently and has a tantrum. Am I in for difficult child in later years? Did the study include single parents?
?

@ Mariasinglemom: The study doesn’t say, but I suspect there were single mothers. Keep in mind, the “negative parenting” in this study consisted of mothers displaying negative emotions toward their babies and toddlers (as witnessed by an outside observer). It didn’t address how much attention children were getting from parents overall.

I’m sorry to hear about the trouble with your daughter. I’m not a child psychologist or therapist, but I gather from various studies that kids experiencing such trouble can benefit from emotion coaching–sensitive talks about emotions, including concrete ways to handle and bounce back from negative emotions. I talk about this a little here:

And if you’re concerned, you might ask your pediatrician for a referral to somebody or some group in your area that offers parent support and help with early childhood emotional problems. Good luck!

Danasays:

October 31, 2011 at 2:56 pm

@ Mariasinglemom: My DD was the same. As she got older she became less clingy. She needed you to be with her 24/7. By 3 she could play by herself (but didn’t like it). Even at 4 we had tears at child care drop off (and she had been going since she was 1). I still had to be with her when she fell asleep. During that year she “matured” and handles separation quite well now.

Annasays:

November 1, 2011 at 9:11 am

“Difficult babies often become very successful children if they receive warm, sensitive, responsive parenting”. Exactly! There is no bad kid, there is bad parenting.

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